Hello!

The website has a whole new look, thanks to the efforts of Jessica Shepard. I wanted to show off the lovely people I have photographed over the last 15 years and also have a tiny home on the internet that is all mine. Do take a few minutes to check it out!

Before I reminisce about summer, I wanted to mark Back to School day. My older daughter is a senior this year (12th grade) and I knew I was clicking the last first day photo of the two of them together. Everyone says it goes by in the blink of an eye, and everyone is right. Here she is on the first day of Kindergarten, and today. Ever the photographer’s child, without prompting she knew we had to recreate the photo.

You know how when they are in elementary school and you think there is NO way they are ready for middle school with all those BIG kids? And then by the end of 5th or 6th grade you know they are more than ready? The sweet bubble that is elementary school is too small all of a sudden? I am starting to feel that way about high school too. Many days she is just a kid, but sometimes I glimpse the adult who needs to see the world, have adventures, learn from outside our safe bubble. And I feel the world needs people like her – kind, conscientious, optimistic, curious, adventurous – not jaded by the news and their own experiences. 

I often read Khalil Gibran’s poem, and the older the kids get, the more it makes sense.

“Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.“

Hope your kiddos have a wonderful year of school! To those of you sending your kids off to college, I hope they have so many grand adventures and make lots of fabulous friends!

xox

Rashmi